The Associated Press has now reporting that French lawmakers approved a bill that allows "terminal sedation" but not euthanasia.

According to the media report the French government approved a bill that allows doctors to sedate a person, upon request, who is nearing death, and withdraw life-sustaining treatments including nutrition and hydration (food and water). According to the article:

The new law will allow patients to request "deep, continuous sedation altering consciousness until death" but only when their condition is likely to lead to a quick death. Doctors will be allowed to stop life-sustaining treatments, including artificial hydration and nutrition. Sedation and painkillers will be allowed "even if they may shorten the person's life." The bill will also apply to patients who are unable to express their will, following a process that includes consultation with family members.

The methods can involve medicating patients until they die naturally of their illness or until they starve. Some doctors, however, say it may be more human to euthanize.

I have not read the bill, but if the bill allows doctors to intentionally cause the death of a person by dehydration, when the person is not otherwise dying, then the act is "slow euthanasia" or euthanasia by dehydration. If the bill clearly limits sedation and dehydration to people who are actually nearing death, then the act is closer to palliative sedation.

I am concerned that the bill seems to define food and fluid as a form of medical treatment. Food and fluid are not medical treatment but rather normal care.

I am also concerned, that the bill allows doctors to sedate and withdraw food and water from a person who is incompetent based on an advanced directive or based on the decision of a proxy. I fear that the protocols established in this bill will be followed, when a person is deemed incompetent even when the person is not otherwise dying.

Acts of sedation and dehydration can be ethically the same as euthanasia when the intent is not based on palliating symptoms but rather causing death.